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2015-02-03T15:53-0600EnglishLarry McMurtry and Diana Ossana PapersMS 276Woodson Research Center82.0 linear ft. (137 boxes)Bulk, 1980-20111890-2011, bulk dates 1980-2011These papers represent a broad view of Larry McMurtry’s literary career, including his collaborations with Diana Ossana. Handwritten notes, editorial correspondence, annotated typescripts, and production material show the creative process for McMurtry’s (and Ossana’s) novels, screenplays, teleplays, and essays. While many works are included here,
Streets of Laredo and
Dead Man’s Walk are among the most fully documented. Additional materials include speeches by McMurtry, and family photographs dating from ca. 1890-2008.McMurtry, LarryOssana, Diana
Arrangement of the Papers

Larry McMurtry papers also located at University of Houston Special Collections and Archives (http://info.lib.uh.edu/sca/index.html).

Restrictions on Use

Permission to publish from the Larry McMurtry and Diana Osanna Papers must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University.

Restrictions on Access

This material is open for research.

Scope and Contents

These papers represent a broad view of Larry McMurtry’s literary career, including his collaborations with Diana Ossana. Handwritten notes, editorial correspondence, annotated typescripts, and production material show the creative process for McMurtry’s (and Ossana’s) novels, screenplays, teleplays, and essays. While many works are included here,

Streets of Laredo and
Dead Man’s Walk are among the most fully documented. Additional materials include speeches by McMurtry, and family photographs dating from ca. 1890-2008.
Biographical Note

Larry McMurtry was born June 3, 1936, in Wichita Falls, TX, the son of William Jefferson, a rancher, and Hazel Ruth (McIver) McMurtry. McMurtry earned a B.A. degree from North Texas State College (now University) in 1958 and an M.A. from Rice University in 1960 with additional study at Stanford University. He married Josephine Ballard, July 15, 1959. In 1962, their son, singer songwriter James McMurtry, was born. In 1966, the couple divorced. McMurtry’s teaching career began at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX, where he taught from 1961 to 1962. From there he returned to his alma mater Rice University, as a lecturer in English and creative writing, 1963-69. He then moved north to Virginia and Washington D.C. and taught as Visiting professor at George Mason College, 1970, and at American University, 1970-71.

His first book,

Horseman Pass By, was published in 1961 by Harpers, New York, and won a Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. McMurtry has since published a steady stream of novels, screenplays, teleplays, and essays has emerged as one of Texas' most prominent fiction writers. Though he lived outside Texas for two decades, McMurtry has drawn themes for many of his novels from the uneasy interaction between his native state's mythic past and its problematic, ongoing urbanization during the later decades of the twentieth century. His earliest works, such as the critically acclaimed
Horseman, Pass By and
The Last Picture Show, expose the bleak prospects for adolescents on the rural ranches or in the small towns of west Texas, while his novels written in the 1970s, including
Terms of Endearment, trace Texas characters drawn into the urban milieus of Houston, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C.

His 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,

Lonesome Dove, received high praise for its realistic detailing of a cattle drive from the late nineteenth century. The book is a transformation into fiction of a part of Texas history the author previously approached in his essays on cowboys, ranching, and rodeos.

As a spokesman for the status of modern Texas letters, McMurtry has been known to criticize some Texas writers for their tendency to overlook the potentially rich material to be found in Texas's modern, industrialized society and growing urban areas.

In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas, he concluded: "Texas writers are sometimes so anxious to avoid the accusation of provincialism that they will hardly condescend to render the particularities of their own place, though it ought to be clear that literature thrives on particulars. The material is here, and it has barely been touched. If this is truly the era of the Absurd, then all the better for the Texas writer, for where else except California can one find a richer mixture of absurdities? Literature has coped fairly well with the physical circumstances of life in Texas, but our emotional experience remains largely unexplored, and therein lie the drama, poems, and novels."

McMurtry became writing partners with Diana Ossana of Arizona for the screenplay “Pretty Boy Floyd”, in 1993, and has collaborated with her on many screenplays, teleplays, and novels since then. Although at the time Ossana had not previously published or even considered herself a “writer”, the pair found that her research skills, discipline, editing style and knack for writing female dialogue in particular complemented McMurtry’s work. (See essay entitled “Ours”, Box 68 F. 1, describing the beginnings of this collaboration.)

In addition to being a teacher and writer, McMurtry is also a savvy businessman, the founder and owner of renowned bookshops by the name of “Booked Up” in Washington, D.C.; Archer City, Texas; and Arizona.

Horseman, Pass By; Guggenheim fellowship, 1964; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award (Oscar) for best screenplay based on material from another medium, 1972, for The Last Picture Show; Barbara McCombs/Lon Tinkle Award for continuing excellence in Texas letters, Texas Institute of Letters, 1986; Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Spur Award from Western Writers of America, and Texas Literary Award from Southwestern Booksellers Association, all 1986, all for
Lonesome Dove; Robert Kirsch Award, Los Angeles Times, 2003, for McMurtry's body of work that "grows out of and reflects brilliantly upon the myth and reality of the American West in all of its infinite variety."

Arranged in alphabetical order by title of the work, whether it is a novel, a screenplay, a teleplay, or an essay. Many works are featured both as novels and screenplays or teleplays, and are filed in order according to which was created first. Essays are often represented by an annotated draft of the piece, and in other cases only by the essay “as published”, meaning the published version is the only version in this collection. Novels are represented by handwritten notes, annotated typescripts, galleys, editorial correspondence, contract correspondence, publicity notes and correspondence, cover and dustjacket art.

Screenplays and teleplays are generally those originally written by McMurtry (in many cases along with Ossana) but in some cases are works based on McMurtry’s works but written by others. This material is generally represented by notes, character lists, “step sheets” or plot outlines, annotated typescripts, and depending on how developed the project became, it could also include editorial and contract correspondence, and extensive production material for the film or teleplay (tv miniseries). Production material would include notes and correspondence regarding casting, director selection, music, locations, editing; shooting schedules; call sheets; videotape of “dailies” (daily footage shot) and various edited versions; publicity plans and materials, and more.

Most heavily featured works include Dead Man’s Walk (pre-quel to Lonesome Dove), and Streets of Laredo (sequel to Lonesome Dove), both of which include drafts of the novels and screenplays, and all extensive production material for the teleplays.

Annotated typewritten drafts, galleys and correspondence related to book reviews written by McMurtry for the

New York Review of Books. Arranged in McMutry’s order, which is roughly chronological.
Epstein, Jason.
Book Business. Dec. 20001087Debo, Angie. Nov. 19971088Lewis, Janet. March, 19981091Lamar, Howard R.
Encyclopedia of the West. Sept. 19981092Wilson, James.
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. April, 1999.1093Raban, Jonathan.
Passage to Juneau. Dec.19991094Limerick, Patricia Nelson.
Something in the Soil. Jan., 20001095Frazier, Ian.
On the Rez. Jan., 20001096Inventing the West. July 20001097Hilton, James Allen.
Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Nov. 20001098Moulton, Gary E.
The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Jan. 20011101Malcolmson, Scott L.
One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race. Feb. 20011102Grey, Zane,
Romancing the West. Sept. 20001103Powell, Anthony. March 20001104Worster, Donald.
A River Running West: The Life and Times of John Wesley Powell. Jan. 20011105McFeely, Eliza.
Zuni and the American Imagination. July, 20011106Moulton, Gary E.
Journals of Lewis & Clark. (Sacajawea’s Gifts) August 2001.1107McMurtry, Larry.
Old Misery: The Missouri River in American History. Oct. 20011108Kesey, Ken. Jan. 20021109Shae, Michael, Series Editor, NYRB Collections – correspondence, Feb. – Aug. 200111010Series III: Speeches, 1990-1995, n.d.(3 folders)
Scope and Contents note

Annotated typescripts for three speeches written and delivered by McMurtry in the 1990s.

“Censorship and the Individual Talent” Writers Day Speech, London, June 2, 1990. Typescripts.11011“Manners at the Millenium and Beyond”, Rice University, late 1990s. Annotated typescript.11012“Splendors and Miseries of Being an Author/Bookseller”, delivered to the ABBA Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 20, 199511013Series IV. Works by Others, ca. 1980-1999(5 lin. ft., 10 boxes)
Scope and Contents note

Screenplays, novels, and other works by authors seeking McMurtry’s comments. Most date from the 1990s.

Photographs of McMurtry and his family and friends, dating from the turn of the 19/20th century, through McMutry’s childhood, his son James McMurtry’s childhood, and through the1990s. Photographs of Dianna Ossana also included.